My Portland Life Design Group Fell Apart in 3 Months

Joined a small design-your-life circle in Portland last June, 8 of us meeting weekly to plan out our ideal schedules and habits. By August, everyone stopped showing up because the leader was pushing expensive supplements and a $500 course. Anyone else hit a dead end with these local groups that start strong then go off the rails?

3 comments

3 Comments

terry_hayes182mo ago

3 months is actually pretty good for a group like that. Look, the leader was upfront about pushing supplements and a course from day one - you all just ignored the red flags because the vibe was fun. These design-your-life circles are basically network marketing pipelines with better snacks. The 8 of you got a solid 12 weeks of free accountability and goal-setting before the pitch came, which is a better deal than most paid programs. Maybe the real issue is that nobody wanted to pay for the actual value being offered after the trial period ran out. Portland is full of people who love the idea of self-improvement but bail the second someone asks for money to keep it going.

michaelcoleman2mo ago

Terry, you called it free accountability but only 3 of those 12 weeks were actually free before the supplement push started. Were you in that group or did you just see the same pattern play out before? Because I'm curious how you'd define the line between "free trial period" and "bait and switch" when the leader was clearly recruiting for an MLM from the very first meeting. The snacks were good but the supplements were $60 a bottle for stuff you can get at Whole Foods for half the price.

wendy_clark19d ago

Call it what you want, but 12 weeks of free goal-setting and accountability in Portland is basically a unicorn. Ive been in three of these groups over the last two years, and two of them had the MLM pitch by week two. The third one just fell apart week four because nobody could agree on a meeting time. So a whole quarter of free structure and someone actually showing up to push you? That's a win in my book. The $500 course was probably overpriced, sure, but the group members could have just said no thanks and kept meeting on their own for free if they wanted.